Dr. Khalid Al-Saleh
By Dr Khalid A Al-Saleh

ministers of Gulf Cooperation Council countries launched the Gulf Center for Disease Prevention and Control, which was approved by the supreme council in January 2021, in order to strengthen coordination for the prevention of infectious and non-infectious diseases in all GCC countries. Although infectious diseases are of major importance, the major danger threatening GCC citizens are chronic or non-infectious diseases - they are the true challenge for this center.

Chronic diseases or non-infectious diseases are diseases that grow over periods and develop to kill the human being. They include cardiovascular diseases, cancer, chronic respiratory diseases and diabetes. These diseases are now causing more than 60 percent of total deaths in the world, as they kill nearly 36 million people, 25 percent of whom are below 60 years old.

Due to the danger of these diseases, world leaders met in New York in Sept 2011 and made a political declaration to confront these diseases. Also, the World Health Organization (WHO) set its strategy between 2013 and 2020 to follow and implement the declaration. Every country under the United Nations umbrella is committed to this political declaration, and countries were put under supervision and reports were made about how committed each country is to the report.

Countries reacted according to their respect and appreciation of the human being. There were countries that worked hard and allocated funds and manpower to implement the four commitments given to each country. Other countries partially achieved the recommendations, with the consideration that what is not realized in all is not left as a whole. There are many countries that list their achievements on paper only, and there are countries that continued to act away from the flock, without care to what is going on around them. These are the four corners of the countries as we know.

The plan of confronting chronic diseases was present in Kuwait's declaration that was adopted in Geneva in 2013 for the GCC. Several years later, a specialized department was established for chronic diseases at our health ministry, and luckily, young leaders were selected, who are known to work hard and sincerely. Here, we can say that we in Kuwait, finally set foot on the right path to control chronic diseases.

With the establishment of this active department and launch of the Gulf center, we will see development in fighting chronic diseases. We in Kuwait and Gulf countries wasted many opportunities and it is not right to let this opportunity slip out of our hands to prove to ourselves first and foremost that we care for the human being and respect the citizen. We have the effective structure, through which we achieved an important part of the third commitment in the international plan in the field of surveillance, monitoring and evaluation.

We have interaction in the field of governance, especially involving other sectors other than the health sector in the process of controlling chronic diseases and their causes, and we have achievements in the second commitment in the field of prevention, especially in reducing consumption of sodium, cancer awareness campaigns and encouraging breastfeeding.

We also have progress in the fourth commitment in the field of healthcare, including palliative care. We also have positive cooperation between the primary care department, dentistry and the private sector to investigate and discover cancers early.

As for diabetes, it needs more communications between the health ministry and Dasman Diabetes Institute, especially after approving DDI as a reference center in the Gulf. As for the treatment of cancer, it needs quick completion of the new center, which was long awaited. So we have indicators - some can be built on, and we have shortages that we should move fast to cover.

In Kuwait today, with a new health minister, who has an honorable history in serious work, we can hope for more. The plan needs a strong budget to manage chronic diseases, an executable strategy and clear duty, and performance indicators to monitor achievements and feedbacks to follow action and improve performance. It also needs to involve various sectors in order to support the national will to confront chronic diseases.

If the administrative system in Kuwait achieves what is required from it, Kuwait will be advanced in the field of controlling chronic diseases. But if we do not take the issue seriously, we will not be the worst country in the world, as there are always countries that are worse than us. Some leaders look at those who are worse than them, but leaders who love their countries seek to compete for the top, and we hope to be with those.

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